Airtight Games closes its doors shortly after the launch of Murdered: Soul Suspect

Airtight Games sprung up in 2004, made up primarily from ex-FASA folk who designed the excellent Crimson Skies and various MechWarrior and MechCommander games. After a decade the studio is no more.

Its best received game was Quantum Conundrum, but I’ll fondly remember them as the team that made Murdered: Soul Suspect - which only came out last month. It was a confused, inconsistent mess, but one that I’ve had a great deal of fun playing and certainly didn't lack interesting ideas.

The studio had already suffered losses earlier this year when it let go of 14 employees, while Kim Swift, who worked for Valve on Portal and Left 4 Dead before joining Airtight, left to work at Amazon Game Studios.

At the time, Airtight exec Jim Deal called it necessary restructuring when he spoke with IGN.

The poor to average reviews of Soul Suspect might be salient, but Square Enix hasn’t released sales information. It received quite a bit of marketing from the publisher, but the end result felt like a game that was pushed out the door long before its systems were fleshed out.

Nobody from Airtight has made a statement, but the studio’s office in Redmond has been vacated and equipment is being sold. A sign outside informed people of its closure, said GeekWire, who visited the offices yesterday morning.

That's a real shame. I haven't bought the game yet, but it's on my radar, and I am planning to check it out around later this year. The game looked like it had an interesting concept, which is something fairly rare these days for bigger titles.

Random thought: I'd love to see a crowdfunded/early access of Crimson Skies. That game was all sorts of great. I have nothing but fond memories of playing it on the xbox back in the day.